Editorial provokes racial trouble
The following is a Counterpoint column:
By Martha McKee-Koletar
After reading your gasoline-igniting editorial, "Return to Grimsley offers second chance" (Feb. 22), I wanted to rip your hate-mongering editorial into a million little pieces and throw them into the garbage where they belong.
Instead of writing such an inflammatory editorial filled with opinions instead of facts, I think it would have been far more appropriate to write a positive article about the peaceful way Josephine Boyd-Bradley was received and the giant step forward she made in the civil rights movement.
I don't minimize her brave character. In fact, I truly admire her courage and applaud her actions, as it must have been very hard indeed. What I don't admire is your "colored" opinion of this historical occasion. You were not in Greensboro at the time, were you? Greensboro doesn't need your left-wing, hate-filled spewing in the name of righteous journalism.
My brother was a student at Greensboro Senior High at the time she attended and he doesn't remember any bad treatment of her. Most certainly, he would not have been a participant in any such awful behavior.
In addition, I happened to have been in the dime store when those young black students came in and sat down at the counter. I, too, was a part of history. I didn't witness any bad treatment of these students at all.
Why should Grimsley apologize? For what? You have given absolutely no specifics of demonstrated bad behavior but rather espoused damaging rhetorical nonsense. Do you have proof that her family dog was killed because of race? Do you have proof that her father's shop was intentionally burned because of race? Do you have proof that her mother was fired because of race? If so, give this information to us.
You state that she had no friends and that she was taunted. Do you not realize that, unfortunately, lots of kids are taunted? This is not to say that is good, but it is not always because of race.
You and your newspaper are doing terrible harm to a city that once was a great city in North Carolina. You seem to delight in race-baiting and stirring up trouble between the races. Why are you constantly bringing up things that happened more than 40 years ago? There can only be one reason, and it is because you and those of your ilk are the real racists. Stop it. Please let Greensboro go back to what it once was: a city filled with love and hope among all races.
The writer lives in Bolivia, N.C.
Comments (11)
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Oh yes, let us harken back to past generations where the blacks and whites at least knew their place in society.
Let us harken back to past generations when there were poll taxes, and literacy tests.
Let us harken back to the days on seperate but equal.
Ahhh the good old days.....
Posted on March 6, 2006 11:23 AM
Thomas, ever hear the phrase, "forgive and forget?"
... Guess not.
Posted on March 6, 2006 11:58 AM
Thomas, you don't really have many original or helpful comments. Miss your point most of the time.
I agree with most of the LTE. For instance, the article about racist deeds which were written over 60 years ago. This is NEWS? Many organizations have to keep things stirred up to keep their jobs.
If we all loved one another and lived in peace, many would be unemployed. What a wonderful world it could be.
Posted on March 6, 2006 12:57 PM
My older brother was at Senior when Josephine was there. I was there after she left...there were no black students...only some who looked black...from Robeson County. While I wasn't there during her time at Senior, I do remember things written on the boy's bathroom wall in the Science Building about the n***** that were not Josephine would not have found endearing. I never understood why there were 2 separate school systems in Greensboro and, unfortunately, when I was kid, the only black people I ever knew were the maids who cleaned our house. Things are much better now for all of us. Still I ask why dredge up all this old stuff from so many years ago and why people, after all of this time, still have such strong reactions.
Posted on March 6, 2006 1:13 PM
WINNER!:
" Many organizations have to keep things stirred up to keep their jobs."
Posted on March 6, 2006 1:24 PM
"WINNER!:
" Many organizations have to keep things stirred up to keep their jobs."
Agreed, although sometimes I think the organization in question here is the N&R editorial desk. Do they print everything they're sent?
Posted on March 6, 2006 3:49 PM
What's up with the '-' in her name. Sounds like she's got her own identity crisis going.
yellow-dog
Posted on March 6, 2006 4:31 PM
YD, you disappoint me. Many females hyphenate their names rather than lose their former identity. I took my maiden name as my middle name so that my side of the family won't be left out, when we married hyphenating wasn't invented in my neck of the woods.
Posted on March 6, 2006 7:06 PM
Carol, nice post and I agree with your points, including your comment to Thomas.
The N&R seems bent on bringing up racial stories from the past. I personally don't know what purpose it serves other than to fill some white pages with black ink at best, fanning the flames of racism at worse.
The TRC IMO is the same thing, dig up the past that hardly anyone cares about to stir up trouble.
I would like to see the day when all the race baiters are standing in the unemployment line.
Posted on March 6, 2006 9:28 PM
I do not mind the N&R printing stories about past racial conflicts in the area. I find them compelling and interesting to read. I marvel at what the human spirit is able to withstand and overcome, and although we haven't arrived at where we need to be, they demonstrate just how far we have progressed.
I also think that the suggestion that these stories keep people "stirred up" underestimates people. Throughout my life, I've been a witness as African-Americans have shown unbelievable restraint when confronted with direct displays of extreme racism in both language and deed.
Yes, these events occurred in the past, but I believe they may have relevance for us now. At a time when we're witnessing so much violence in the middle east, it is easy (and I'm including myself here too) to see "those people" as completely different from ourselves, when in fact, we're not too far removed from an ugly and violent aspect of our own past.
Oh, and although there is no way to provide any proof as the letter writer demands, I don't have to push my crediblity too far out on a limb to believe that, considering the circumstances of those times, when a minority family has a pet killed, a shop burned, and there is a firing from a job, probably at least 2 out of 3 of those events were a result of racism.
Posted on March 7, 2006 3:43 AM
Scott_Free,
So when you have an argument with someone do you keep on talking about it, long after you've made up? Do you bring it up on a daily basis even though you know that it has to potential to open old wounds? Would you go after someone who bullied you in Elementary school now? If you’ve answered no to any of those questions, then I hope you realize that it’s the same thing with columns such as the LTE described. This stuff happened 40 years ago. The primary reason race relations are still so poor today is that nobody wants to forgive and forget.
If you like to marvel at what the human spirit is able to endure, perhaps you should read some books like “Blind Courage” by Bill Irwin. If that’s not endurance of the human spirit, I don’t know what is. Furthermore, you’re absolutely right “there is no way to provide any proof as the letter writer demands.” This means that you cannot say if 2 out of 3 events were results of racism either. It cuts both ways.
Posted on March 7, 2006 10:22 AM